In today's world of fast food service, many people wish to have their food served quickly and enjoy it without waiting long periods, thus allowing them to conserve their time for the pursuit other pleasures and diversions. As such, various food establishments have implemented many time saving features such as production assembly of foodstuffs, use of cooking methodologies to speed preparation of food, use of containers for ease of transporting foodstuffs by the consumer, and the like. Any device that could save labor or time in these circumstances could be considered a valued commodity.
One area that needs improvement is in regards to covered drinking straws. Covered drinking straws (e.g., a drinking straw that is generally enclosed within a plastic, paper, or the like, covering or sheath) may often be distributed by the restaurant industry to their patrons as a sanitary measure and convenience. The patron or consumer then generally removes the covering (e.g., de-sheathes the covered drinking straw) to substantially obtain and use a generally clean and sanitary drinking straw for the consumption of their beverage.
One possible covered drinking straw de-sheathing method requires the patron or consumer to grasp the cover of a covered drinking straw and to lightly press one end of the covered drinking straw down upon a solid object (e.g., a dining table; the consumer's knee or thigh). The consumer could then try to continue to press at least a portion of the cover towards the pressed end of the drinking straw. Normally, this action could cause the other end of the straw to generally break through and protrude out the other end of the cover. With the seal of the cover broken as such, the consumer could easily discard the cover by holding the open end of the straw in the consumer's mouth and pulling off the sheath (e.g., remaining) with one hand. However many younger consumers have been known to blow into the straw to launch the remaining sheath as an air-borne projectile much to the annoyance and consternation of older consumers. In addition to annoyance, the eventual landing of such a projectile may convert the landed item into litter and contribute to the clean-up needs of the fast food enterprise providing the straw.
To further aid in the ease of de-sheathing drinking straws, other attempts have generally employed making a section of the drinking straw cover weaker (e.g., more susceptible to tearing action) than the remaining portion of the cover (e.g., through the use of perforations.) In this manner, the user may find it easier to tear off a portion of the cover aligned with this section thus allowing for easier removal of the cover from the drinking straw. A consumer could hold such a covered drinking straw in one hand (e.g., the forefinger and thumb grasping the portion proximate to the weaker section) and pulling it away from the section generally held by the other fingers in the hand. In this manner, the weaker section may be torn away from the stronger section of the drinking straw covering, thus unmasking an end portion of the drinking straw. This solution still could be considered a clumsy method of de-sheathing a covered drinking straw and may not be easily practiced by one who is not that dexterous.
What is needed therefore is an apparatus that can generally allow a simple, one-handed, quick motion by an individual to partially de-sheath a cover from a covered drinking straw in a sanitary and efficient manner.